


Still a bit Impossible

by Yeziel_Moore



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode Fix-it: s04e08 Silence in the Library, Everybody Lives, F/M, small allusion to sex and nudity (chapter 4), sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeziel_Moore/pseuds/Yeziel_Moore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there is one thing River learned from the Doctor is that to keep an ace under your sleeve can and will save your life at a later date. Another thing to know about River Song is that she’s a very stubborn woman, one who is tragically used to fight for her life, to fight dirty and to never pull her punches.<br/>Here is the story of how she survived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. River

**Disclaimer:** _It’s hilarious to think that anything but this plot belongs to me,_ _*dies laughing*_

 **Words:** _2915._

* * *

 

  

_“There’s a neural relay in the communicator. Lets you send thought mail. That’s it there. Those green lights. Sometimes it can hold an impression of a living consciousness for a short time after death. Like an afterimage.”_ The Doctor in _Silence in the Library._  


 

  **~01~01~01~  
  
**

River knew that this course of action would almost certainly kill her, but even as the knowledge made her heart pound harder, her hands never once faltered. There was no room for a miscalculation here, she had to get this right on the first try or not only would she die in vain but the Doctor would follow her like the stupid martyr he was. She couldn’t let that happen, the Doctor wouldn’t die here, he was too young, didn’t even know her properly yet.

River finished connecting the right cables for the download, now all she had to do was connect the storage device or, in other words, her body, most specifically, her brain. She seated herself and with the efficiency of a soldier River started putting the finishing touches to the improvised device she had built. Just in time too, for the Doctor choose that moment to wake up and, typical of him, immediately proceeded to beg her not to sacrifice her life, to let him do it in her place, _etcetera_. Had she been anyone else or had he woken up one minute earlier she may’ve faltered. As things were, all his begging and cajoling didn’t even tempt her and seeing him so young (to her at least) only solidified her resolve.

There wasn’t much time left now, less than two minutes. The Doctor, bless his hearts, had finally shut up for more than a second and had resorted to staring at her with those big brown eyes, so beautiful, so utterly sad and so full of everything that was good and terrible in the Universe. And that thought was so utterly schoolgirl in love that River couldn’t help but quirk her lips into the teasing smirk that would one day be utterly familiar to him. Even now, when he was a skinny thing inside a blue suit full to the brim of manic energy and barely concealed darkness, the Doctor had the ability to make her fall in love with him. Fortunately for everyone involved he still couldn’t make her obey.

River hated to admit weakness, even to herself, but she couldn’t deny that the prospect of dying terrified her, as would any sane person. Still, she didn’t have any regrets, because there were only three people in the whole of Time and Space she would ever do something so monumentally stupid for and the Doctor was one of them. Well, there was one thing wrong with her previous statement, River Song did regret one thing and that was joining the list of people who had left the Doctor alone, whether it happened by choice or by force didn’t matter. It happened and it kept happening and she knew that her actions would break his hearts now and for a long time to come.  If only she could find another way! An idea, an utterly mad and absolutely brilliant idea sparked in River’s mind. Maybe there was a way…

A long time ago in her past, far in the Doctor’s future, when River Song was nothing but a name she had heard for the first time moments before, she killed the Doctor. Fortunately for him and her and the Universe at large, she reconsidered her actions soon after. Because, for the first time in her life as Mels, she not only wanted to be more than a well trained psychopath but she also had proof, in the form of a name, that she _could_ be more that a psychopath. For the first time ever she could see a future beyond the darkness and the silence, she could see light, adventure and, best of all, freedom. And she wanted that future, she wanted it so badly... That was how Melody Pond, soon to be River Song, made the split-second decision to threw everything she had behind that bright and fantastic future.

In the end she’d succeeded in reviving the Doctor but it had cost her, it’d cost her a lot, eight lives to be precise. River Song, in all her curly glory, was her fourth body *****. Nobody, not the Doctor and much less the Silence, knew how many regenerations she had in total. They hadn’t known she _could_ regenerate until it happened the first time in that dirty alleyway in the States. She had been alone then and she had remained that way, and in time she had managed to puzzle out some of the mysteries her body hid. She never found out exactly how many regenerations she had left but she learned a lot all the same. She learned that she could get by with a few hours sleep per day and still be full to the brim with energy and ready to survive a little longer. She learned that she didn’t need a clock to tell the time or a map to know where she was standing and that if she concentrated hard enough she could faintly feel the Earth move under her feet. Finally she learned that she must be bigger on the inside because there was a huge space inside her slim body brimming with a scary amount of energy.

That space was emptied in her successful attempt to revive the Doctor. Or so she and the Doctor had thought. Truth was that she had been so drained of energy after her stunt that if someone had told her that she had swallowed a black hole she wouldn’t have been surprised. But once her new body had settled? Oh, she had known the truth then. She hadn’t drained all her lives in one go, no, somehow or another she had clung onto one life, one more chance. River still didn’t know how that was possible but it was and so she told no one. Not that she had anyone to tell, the Doctor and her parents were long gone by then.

 “River! Please! No!”

Of course the Doctor couldn’t be quiet for longer than five seconds, what had she been thinking? No matter, she had some very important things to tell him and she had to do it while finishing her work with the wires as well as looking for that almost empty space inside her. Thankfully she was excellent at multitasking. She hadn’t been lying when she told the Doctor that he didn’t have a chance and neither did she. Except for one little discrepancy, this Doctor, for all his energy and grandstanding, was tired and wouldn’t fight nearly as hard to live; she, on the other hand, had a laundry of reasons to keep living and considering who her parents were survival was practically written in her DNA. That elevated her chances of pulling this off without dying from zero to almost zero. She could work with almost.

River was talking, telling the prone Doctor the story of their last meeting so that he knew what to do when the time came.

“Time can be rewritten.”

That pulled her short.

“Not those times. Not one line! Don't you dare!” River snapped fiercely before checking herself. She continued, softly and reassuring. “It's OK. It's OK, it's not over for you. You'll see me again. You've got all of that to come. You and me, time and space. You watch us run!”

Her time was almost up, ten seconds now. She put the finished headset on her head, the metal cold and lifeless, like she would be if this didn’t work out. Seven seconds left.

“River, you know my name! You whispered my name in my ear. There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could...”

Four, three…

“Hush, now! Spoilers...”

She smiled at him tenderly. She wished that she could tell him everything, that she had the time, that she was allowed but she wasn’t and he knew that. Those were the rules, his rules, but did he care? No, of course not. Rules were boring and the Doctor didn’t do boring unless it benefited him, which in this case didn’t. He truly was a madman with a box, her madman with a box.

...three, two, one...

It was time. With tears in her eyes and a smile firmly planted on her face River plugged both cables together. His stricken face was the last thing she saw before light flashed all around her, pain like no other shot through the whole length of her body for an eternity and a half and then there was nothing.  
  


**~01~01~01~**  
  


The transition from unconsciousness to consciousness was more abrupt than River recalled. One moment there was nothing and the next she was standing in a carefully manicured lawn, just like that. She looked down at her very familiar body and her calloused hands from handling guns, the white dress barely registered in her shocked state. Disappointment washed over River when she realized that this meant she had failed and ultimately died

“It's OK. You're safe,” said a familiar voice. She looked up and as she expected CAL, or Charlotte she supposed, was standing right in front of her and next to the little girl, almost like a shadow but more like a guardian, was Dr. Moon.

She didn’t have the heart to tell the little girl that nothing was OK and would never be again.

“I failed,” River muttered to herself and it simply took too much effort to hold back the tears so she left them fall. What did it matter anymore? A copy of her consciousness was alive in the data core but her body had died, she hadn’t been able to regenerate and only now she realized how much hope she had put in that flimsy possibility. What a stupid thing to do!

Charlotte looked puzzled at the woman, and then at Dr. Moon, who looked equally confused, and back. “What did you fail to do?”

River focused on the little girl, a hero really, that had managed to save 4022 people and decided that it couldn’t hurt to tell her the truth, but to do that she needed to establish a little bit of background. She cleared her throat. “I’m human, but due to some improbable circumstances during my conception I share some abilities with Time Lords, like the Doctor,” she clarified, seeing Charlotte confusion who then nodded for her to continue. “Time Lords had this ability, called regeneration. They could, in the event of their dead, change their whole bodies, essentially gaining another life. I was going to do the same thing but...” River’s voice trailed off.

It was obvious to her that she hadn’t succeeded. That was why the wide and happy smile in the girl’s face took her by surprise.

What...

“But you didn’t fail.”

What?!

“Look!” As soon as Charlotte said that the environment changed and the three of them were standing in a familiar living room. They were in Charlotte’s dream house. In front of them was a television and in the screen she could see... she squinted, was that an infirmary? A very crowded infirmary by the look of things. “There!” Charlotte pointed and the angle of the camera shifted to show a single bed separated from the rest by a curtain and in the middle of the bed, barely visible under a white sheet, was a dark-haired toddler. That was all she could see from the awkward angle, at least until the toddler turned around and an eerily familiar face was shown on the screen.

 _“WHAT?!”_ Oh, and now she even sounded like the Doctor, but still!

“Is something wrong?”

“I... That’s not... How is that...!”

Charlotte and Dr. Moon shared a look of shared confusion and worry. The worry intensified when the woman, River Song, asked to see the recording of her death. “I won’t believe it until I see it,” was all she said and Charlotte finally relented.

Charlotte didn’t want to see, it was very sad and she couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. She had saved all those people but in the end it was River Song’s sacrifice that had saved _and_ freed them all. Almost as if sensing her thoughts Dr. Moon’s hand landed atop her head, and even if she now remembered that this wasn’t _really_ real, it comforted her all the same.

The events playing in the screen were all an incredible succession of coincidences that, compounded with the knowledge River had of the Doctor’s future, didn’t seem like coincidences anymore. She saw the moment she died, her brain and body overloaded by the huge download, and she _had_ died, of that there was no doubt in her mind. It should’ve ended there but it miraculously _didn’t_. Minutes passed, her body lay still in that parody of a throne, and the Doctor never once took his heartbroken eyes off of her. Not until someone came to find him. It was as if he had been freed from an enchantment, he stood up and reluctantly approached her body, it was clear in his body language that all he wanted to do then was to turn around and run far, far away. Instead he carefully untangled the wires form her body and lifted her dead weight gently. River couldn’t see his expression from the angle of the camera but she could imagine it all too well, she had seen it plenty of times after all, the devastation and the accompanying darkness in his eyes. His face may be different but the man wasn’t.

In the end he passed her body to the silent man that had freed him. He said nothing to him except that she had saved them all and then left without once looking back. She hadn’t expected him to, once the danger was past the Doctor always left and never looked back or, well, almost never. The nameless man who had her body went to the infirmary and, respectfully, deposited it in an empty bed in an out-of-the-way corner. He even drew a curtain around her before leaving in a hurry. It was understandable, there were 4022 people to evacuate and only one day to do it, time was of the essence and she, for all that she was a hero to them, was dead.

But not for long. It was hours later but River caught the first signs of an impending regeneration ****** , a flicker of yellow-orange light underneath the white cloth that covered her. In the chaos of the evacuation nobody paid the miracle of life any mind, not that there was much to see, covered from prying eyes as her body had been. She noticed how her body shrunk until it was tiny (a toddler again, really?), she saw her new self squirm uncomfortably until her head surfaced, she saw her new eyes open for the first time and she saw herself glance around clueless, not a single shred of recognition in them. Oh, that was not good and, at the same time, it made a lot of sense.

So now here she was, as a consciousness in the data core of The Library and completely at a loss about what to do next. The live feed showed her new self contently sleeping away the exhausting effects of the regeneration while the last stragglers were rounded up. She managed to peel her eyes from the screen and focus on Charlotte.

“See? You did it!” The girl smiled but River could see that she was confused by her lack of enthusiasm.  

“I did, but I did it wrong,” River finally said.

CAL frowned. “Wrong how?”

River shook her head. “Something went wrong” she repeated and returned her eyes to the sleeping toddler, almost as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and she couldn’t. “I know her, I saw her once, a few weeks ago actually. I wanted to see if the Doctor... if he was alright after what happened in New York. I miscalculated. I overshot my landing and arrived too far into his future.” River laughed. “Or maybe I didn’t and this was supposed to happen.”

“I don’t understand.”

River looked back at Charlotte and Dr. Moon. “No, I supposed you don’t, but I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I need information on someone and then I need to speak with Mr. Lux, can you do that?”

“Yes, but I...”

River squatted next to the confused girl and put her hands on her shoulders. She gave her a reassuring smile. “That little girl, me, when I saw her last, she was travelling with the Doctor and living in London in the 21st century.” Charlotte’s eyes widened “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but Time Travel rarely does. I know what to do to get me, that me, back where I should be, but I’m going to need yours and Mr. Lux help for that. Will you help me?”

“Ok,” nodded Charlotte after a few tense seconds had passed. “Who do I need to look up?”

River smiled, relieved, still a little disbelieving but mostly hopeful. Whatever had happened to her, River knew that she would find the Doctor and after that it was just a matter of time before everything got fixed again.

“Her name is Clara, Clara Oswald.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***** I’m assuming River had the same amount of regenerations as a full Time Lord, that’s to say, twelve regenerations, thirteen bodies in total.
> 
> 1st body: baby Melody and the girl in the orphanage.
> 
> 2nd body: unknown, girl in the alleyway.
> 
> 3rd body: Mels
> 
> 4th body: River Song.
> 
> 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th potential lives: used to revive the Doctor.
> 
> 13th body: Clara Oswald.
> 
>  
> 
>  ****** As far as I’ve seen, regenerations are tricky business. But our main point of reference is the Doctor and I think that he regenerates with the same finesse that he uses to drive the TARDIS, that’s to say, none. I’m mentioning this because we have seen difficult or blotched regenerations before, for instance, the regeneration from the seventh to the eight Doctor which is pretty similar to River’s here, except that he recovered his memories and Clara... well, we’ll see, won’t we?


	2. The Doctor

**Disclaimer:** _It's hilarious to think that anything but this plot belongs to me,_ _*dies laughing*_

 **Words:** _3998_   _._

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" _She's just a girl. How can she be? She can't be. She is. She can't be. She's not possible."_ The Doctor in _The Rings of Akhaten._

**~02~02~02~  
  
**

In their first adventure the Doctor didn't notice. If asked about it he will splutter, flail his arms around and say that  _of course_  he didn't notice, he was a bit worried about saving the world, _again_  mind you, from the Great Intelligence who was using the Wi-Fi to upload thousands of people into the internet, in case  _you_  didn't notice, thank you very much! It's a valid excuse, all things considered.

It was in the bazaar in Akhaten that he first noticed. He and Clara were running away from the platform where little Merry had been snatched mid-song. They were in a hurry, the Doctor looking for something while Clara followed, reassured that they weren't walking away. They reached Dor'een and the Doctor quickly bargained for one of her moped, but there was just one little problem...

"I need something precious."

Clara gives him a Look. "Well, you must have something. All the places you've seen, there must be something."

The Doctor takes out his sonic screwdriver and holds it protectively, as if afraid Clara would take it from him. In the end there is no time to discuss the value of the screwdriver and the stinginess of the only Time Lord alive, Merry has been kidnapped and it's up to them to save her because these people won't raise a hand against their God.

Clara extends her hand and takes off one ring. It's a nice ring and valuable enough to  _buy_  them the moped, never mind rent one, but that's not what catches the Doctor's attention, it's the bracelet. It's a discreet piece of jewellery, a simple silver chain with round links and a single charm dangling from it. He only gets a glimpse of it but it's enough to call forth vague feelings of recognition and nostalgia, like the half-remembered dream of something precious. Then it's gone, Clara has surrendered her mother's ring for a chance to save Merry and they can't afford to waste another second on things that aren't essential to saving the little girl.

Later, when everything had calmed down, the Old God defeated by the infinity contained on a single leaf and they were once again safely inside the TARDIS, the Doctor allowed himself to remember what he had seen, what he had felt. Or he tried. For some reason he didn't seem to be able to summon the memory in its entirety. He remembered the feelings that assaulted him as he laid eyes upon the familiar/unfamiliar bracelet but the memory itself was shaky at best. He didn't know what the bracelet was but he had been around something similar before, many times, if only his stupid memory would cooperate for once!

The Doctor paused in the middle of his usual after-adventure routine, which basically consisted on running around the console like a madman and talking a mile a minute about anything and everything. Hey! It was a great way to vent the stress that always accompanied an adventure, regardless of how successful it'd been, so don't knock it until you've tried it. He risked a curious look in Clara's direction. She was leaning against the railing and appeared lost in thought, her hands were playing with the empty space that used to be occupied by a priceless ring. Guilt curled like a familiar housecat around his hearts, she'd had to give up something utterly precious to her because he couldn't do it himself; the weight of his guilt was slightly offset this time by the almost nonexistent weight of her ring in his vest pocket. At least that had gone well.

Even so, he remained curious. The Doctor could admit, if only in his own head, that he was overly curious when it came to Clara but he didn't think he could be blamed. She, or someone exactly like her in every aspect,  _had_  died twice in front of him.

"Clara?"

She looked up, hands never ceasing their mindless movements. "Yes, Doctor?"

"I was thinking, more like wondering really, that when we, and by that I actually mean you, rented the moped, well, you had this bracelet and it looked familiar, so I thought..."

"Doctor," interrupted Clara, a mixture of bemusement and amusement clear on her face. "What are you asking Doctor?"

"I... well, I wanted to see it?" The Doctor asked awkwardly.

Still looking amused and a bit confused, Clara walked closer and extended her right arm and there, dangling from her wrist, was the mysterious bracelet. It really was quite simple, nothing special to look at, except... the Doctor's eyes widened and his mouth went dry when he recognized the patterns engraved on both sides of the flat charm: one side spelled "Love" and the other "Family" in the circular patterns of his native language.

Unconsciously, the Doctor tried to take Clara's hand in order take a closer look but his companion took a hasty step back.

"I'm sorry, it was, I was... I'm sorry," he said lamely, hands itching to grab the bracelet and confirm what he had seen. He didn't move.

"It was my mother's," she said, but there was a strange look in her eyes and something not-quite-right in her voice. It lacked the intensity she had displayed earlier when talking about her mom's ring for one. It was almost like she was talking about a stranger. "It's the only thing I've from her," the Doctor face twisted in confusion. "My biological mother."

Realization dawned on the Time Lord.

"You are adopted?!" The Doctor exclaimed in honest surprise, like he hadn't expected that at all. And he hadn't. He thought he had visited all of the relevant points of this Clara's timeline but if he had missed that, what else had he missed? Now that he thought about it, the TARDIS  _had_  made a large jump right about Clara's birth. He hadn't thought much of it, it happened all the time after all, and once he had seen little Clara, well, the resemblance to her parents was obvious to a blind man. Apparently that was not the case.

Clara shrugged. It was obvious that it wasn't news to her and that it didn't bother her. It had, a long time ago; she had been very confused at first, she had known nothing about anything, not about herself, much less about whoever her parents had been. The only thing she had was this bracelet. She was told that it belonged to her mother, that it was special and to never take it off. In all the years that had passed since then, in spite of growing to love her adoptive parents unconditionally, she had never took it off and she wasn't about to do so now, not even for Chin Boy.

"I don't remember her," she said truthfully. "I don't remember anything from before I was adopted," that was almost true, she did remember a few things but she didn't want to tell the Doctor about the lonely days spent on a mansion in the distant future or about Mr. Lux. "And it doesn't matter either way, because Ellie Oswald is my mother and nothing will change that."

And that had been that. Mostly. The Doctor had to clarify a few details about Clara (present one) not being the replacement of a dead friend (the other Claras). But in the end he did returned her mom's ring to her and everything was fine. Well, mostly fine, he now had an even larger list of questions about this impossible girl, which, come to think on it, was nothing new really.  
  


**~02~02~02~**

  
The Doctor was currently very confused. Considering he was over a thousand years old that wasn't something that happened very often and he didn't like it. Not one bit. Well, maybe a little bit. It did seem to liven things up even as it drove him mad. Him and the TARDIS. And that was another thing! The TARDIS, who had always been fine, or at least indifferent, towards his companions, hated Clara. It made no sense at all. Unless Clara was a cleverly disguised trap, which he had considered in depth before coming to the conclusion that it was a rubbish idea. Well, ok, he may've run one or ten non-invasive tests on her without her knowledge before coming to that conclusion, but still!

The Doctor huffed into his cup of tea. He was bored and he tended to over think things when he had too much time on his hands. Not that anyone could hold time in their hands, that was stupid, like trying to hold back death and he was going to stop there! Blimey! Even his thoughts were running away from him faster that he could catch them. The Doctor put the untouched cup on the console and started pacing in circles around it. His thought process seemed to be doing the same thing bouncing back and forth between the different impossibilities that were his newest companion.

"What am I missing? There has to be something I'm missing. Let's see, first she was a dalek. No, no, she was a human who was turned into a dalek. Yes, that's better, she was a human-turned-dalek in the 51st century but she died. The whole asylum was blown to bits! And even if she didn't die then, nothing could've returned her to her human body, there was nothing left of her but her mind. It could be a fake body, a vessel to store her consciousness, like Rory the Roman! Or maybe a psychic link like-" The Doctor's monologue cut off abruptly, dark memories of the Flesh and what it had been used for clear as crystal in his mind. After the whole thing had blown over he had taken steps so that something like that would never happen again. Ever.

The TARDIS hum changed pitch into a something akin to a worried tone. She and he may be unable to communicate verbally ever again but they could (almost) always understand each other. He patted the console in recognition and thanks of her efforts.

"I'm thinking too much and too hard again, aren't I girl? I know, I know, but I can't let it rest! It's a mystery and I love mysteries! They are wonderful, and thrilling, and fun and" a memory of River flashed through his mind and he smiled in spite of himself, "and dangerous. How could I resist?" He asked, not knowing if he was talking about Clara's status as a mystery or about River.

The TARDIS worried hum didn't change and the Doctor knew he had failed in his pathetic attempt to direct her attention elsewhere. The TARDIS had always been sensitive to his moods in a way that most TARDISes had never been. All Time Capsules, even the oldest models, had been psychic to a degree, some more than others, but most of them couldn't or didn't dare form a close connection with their designed drivers beyond what was absolutely necessary. They were tools, after all, and proper Time Lords didn't bother with sentiments like friendship, much less with in correlation with a machine regardless of how alive they were. He had always been different though, and thinking back on those times, it made sense that he would chose the one TC that was equally different. Or maybe it had been her that chose him as Idris had said.

And he had gone off on a tangent again. The Doctor rubbed his eyes tiredly and slumped into the floor, back propped against the console. It was a day after the journey into the centre of the TARDIS, another adventure in which the three of them had almost died, had died in a sense, thought the Doctor, as he remembered the zombies. But it hadn't happened, not to Clara at least. He still remembered, of course, as did his Old Girl. He tilted his head back, gaze lost on the fragments of poems and history drawn on the walls of the TARDIS' console room. River had been the one to insist on the decoration, meagre as it was. She had been the one to select the fragments and to convince the TARDIS to apply those changes, not that the TARDIS ever denied River anything. He had been sulking quite hard then and he had never properly thanked her. Now it was too late.

"She read my name." And that, right there, was the heart of the problem, he realized. His name, his biggest and most guarded secret, discovered by a human not even a quarter of a century old. It didn't matter that Clara didn't remember what happened, what mattered was that she could read it in the first place.

The Doctor stood up suddenly and walked briskly in the direction of the library. He threw the doors open and headed towards The Book. He stopped right in front of it. It was open on that damned page still and his name stood glaringly obvious in the pages. There was just one problem with what had happened here.

"Just like that? She just walked up to this book and read it my name. How? How is any of this possible?" His only answer was the confused hum of the TARDIS who had no more answers on this matter than him. "It should not be possible," he mumbled.

He turned the page back and left the Library. However, no matter how hard he tried; the Doctor couldn't erase the memory of that cursed page, of his name, written in the elegant circles of his native language, a language that only he and the TARDIS were supposed to know. And River, but River was dead. The Doctor swallowed the lump in his throat, tucked the memory of his late wife safely away, and went back to solving the current mystery.

Clara, the Impossible Girl who had died twice before in two completely different times, who was back on his life like she'd never left, who could read his name written in gallifreyan, who had a mysterious bracelet that refused to be remembered correctly and was engraved with words also written in gallifreyan and who apparently hadn't existed before she was left on an orphanage when she was around three years of age.

Just who, exactly, was Clara  _-Oswin for the win-_  Oswald?  
  


**~02~02~02~  
  
**

It had been almost two weeks for the Doctor and the TARDIS had took it upon herself to land in London and had practically ejected her Thief from the premises, that is, the underside of the consol room where the Doctor had spent almost every waking hour fiddling with her insides and generally making a mess of things that were in perfect functioning order. She had been perfectly fine after a few adjustments and a couple of days of rest, she didn't need him pottering around, breaking and fixing things for his own amusement.

"Hey!" The indignant shout of the Time Lord rang clear in the air, causing kids and adults alike to turn around and stare at the strangely dressed man currently having a heated discussion with what appeared to be a replica of a Police Box from the sixties. In the middle of the park. The Doctor paid them no mind, if he even knew they were there. Probably not.

"What was that for?!" Somehow the TARDIS managed to give the impression of haughtily turning his back on him and sticking her non-existent nose in the air. "I was just making sure that you were alright after all that happened the other day!" The Doctor thumped the door in frustration, the fake wood under his palm responded by heating up and vibrating in what clearly was annoyance. The Doctor sniffed, now insulted. "If that's how you're going to be. See if I ever worry about the mess those wires are again!" And with those parting words the Doctor turned around on his heels and stalked away, muttering under his breath about stubborn boxes that simply didn't know how to appreciate his genius and was that an ice-cream shop? It had been a while since he had eaten a proper, 21st century, Earth ice-cream, so why not?

Ten minutes later the Doctor left the little shop with seven scoops of outrageously different flavours stacked precariously on top of a single cone. He had spent seven out of those ten minutes pointlessly complaining to the attendant about the lack of fish fingers and custard flavours, much to the disgust and frustration of everyone in the shop. Now he was leaning against a secluded tree, enjoying his treat and watching the humans go on with their lives. It was entrancing like watching the TV never was. But this is the Doctor we're talking about, so less than twenty minutes later he was finished with his ice-cream and bored out of his skull and considering walking the distance between the Park and the Maitland's house to pay Clara a visit. It wasn't Wednesday yet but surely Clara wouldn't mind his presence too much, he could even help with the kids, he was great with kids!

Mind made up the Doctor straightened himself up, dusted his coat and was about to leave when a familiar voice reached his ears. In an instinctive and somewhat embarrassing reaction the Doctor ducked behind his tree. As he peered around the trunk in what he thought was a stealthy fashion but was really nothing like that, the Doctor saw the very same person he had been obsessing over more than usual in this past two weeks.

Clara was walking arm in arm with an older man the Doctor immediately recognized as her adoptive father. They were walking sedately down the gravel path and she was talking, telling him a story, probably some of the shenanigans the kids she looked after got into because no one knew she travelled through Time and Space with him. There was a huge smile on her face, the kind that seemed to light her up from the inside, the kind that she gave him after successfully saving an entire civilization and the Doctor found himself strangely jealous that there was someone else who could produce such a result, which was completely irrational but no one had ever accused the Doctor of being rational.

They were getting closer to his hiding spot now and somehow Clara always seemed to know when he was near so the Doctor shuffled back into the shadows a bit more. He didn't want to be discovered, which was ironic considering than less than five minutes ago he'd been about to storm into her life like usual but now... The doctor had never been overly fond of domestics, as his two previous selves could attest to most vehemently, but there was something about a father and daughter having a good time together, about  _Clara_  and her father, that simply tugged at his heartstrings and made him a bit nauseous, like it wasn't supposed to be, not like  _that_ , not with  _him_ , and yet... He couldn't explain it, not even to himself, which only served to frustrate the Doctor even more.

 _"Sulking really doesn't suit you, dear."_  The ghost of River Song said out of the blue. She did that; appear out of thin air in death as she had in life.

The last of the Time Lords tensed imperceptibly under his heavy coat and proceeded to ignore her presence and words as usual. He didn't know why or how River keep popping around when she was no more than a data ghost that was supposed to be stored inside the data core of The Library but he refused to acknowledge her, knowing that if he did everything would fall to pieces, that  _he_  would fall to pieces. It was never good when that happened and something to be avoided at all costs. The last time he had spent decades atop of a cloud, watching the world spin and sometimes burn under him, it had taken the death of a lovely girl to snap him out of it; the time before that he had tried to change a fixed point in time and once again it had taken the disgraceful death of a wonderful woman to shake him up from his funk.

 _"Spying on the new companion? Is that what you do now when the Old Girl throws you out?"_  River teased. The Doctor could picture the smirk on her face and had to suppress the urge to pout. It was pure coincidence that Clara was taking a stroll in the same park as he! Or at the very least he had nothing to do with it! He turned a bit and saw Clara getting further away, still talking her father's ear off, not that he seemed to mind, he looked as happy as his daughter. In sharp contrast to his previous jealousy, it made him smile to see her so happy, so alive.

 _"She's not a trap, you know? Clara's special but she's just a girl,"_  suddenly River was in front of him and it took all his auto-control not to react to the urgent look in her face.  _"She's... she's something you've been looking for a long time, sweetie, but you've got to be patient."_  She was fading, he noticed absently, as he kept half an eye on her, his brain not yet registering his wife's words.  _"Listen to me, Doctor! You have to be patient!"_

It took him a few seconds but once River's words sank all he wanted to do was bash his head on the same tree he was using as a hiding spot. Or shake her ghost until all her secrets were out in the open. He did neither, mainly because the former would hurt for no good reason and the later wasn't possible without River being here, so he merely stood still and watched as Clara and her father took a turn and disappeared from his line of sight. The Doctor stayed like that a little longer before turning around. Maybe the Old Girl would let him in now?

Luck was on his side apparently, or maybe the Old Girl had missed him, because the door opened without trouble. He closed it behind him gently (no need to antagonize her so soon!) and sat on the captain's chair, face blank but behind that mask of indifference his mind was whirling with possibilities. Of course River knew something, she always seemed to know more about the current crisis than even him, and when she didn't know she could bluff her way out of it like the best of them. She would've been the best poker player in the Universe if she'd ever realized that archaeology was stupid when one could travel in time.

"She's something you've been looking for a long time," he repeated her words aloud. They didn't make any more sense when he said them either. There was something in the way River had chosen those exact words that didn't sit right with him, but even as he knew that he couldn't think of why. He couldn't even begin to speculate what, exactly, River thought he had been looking for. The mystery had just deepened and he couldn't even be mad with River about it. The unsettling feeling that had been nipping at his heels these past weeks had been replaced by excitement.

"Well then!" The Doctor exclaimed as he jumped to his feet, energy thumping with every beat of his hearts and thrumming through his veins. He rushed to the console and started pressing buttons and moving levers. The brakes were the last to go. "It's adventure time!"

Honestly, River should've known better than that. When there were mysteries to solve and adventure was around the corner, the Doctor was never patient.


	3. Clara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was out faster than I thought it'd be. I was going to sit on it a little longer, until I could work out the problems the next chapter was giving me, but although the next chap is very much on the workshop I know what I want now. 
> 
> So I release the prisoner!

**Disclaimer:**   _It's hilarious to think that anything but this plot belongs to me,_ _*dies laughing*_

 **Words:**   _4162_ _._

* * *

" _I don't know where I am. Is like I'm breaking into a million pieces and there is only one thing I remember. I have to save the Doctor. He always looks different. I always knows it's him. Sometimes I think I'm everywhere at once, running every second just to find him. Just to save him. But he never hears me. Almost never. I blew into this world on a leaf. I'm still blowing. I don't think I'll ever land. I'm Clara Oswald, I'm the Impossible Girl, and I was born to save the Doctor,"_ Clara in  _The Name of the Doctor._ *****

  
**~03~03~03~  
**

The earliest memory Clara could recall was of a man. His name was Mr. Lux. He had been short, pudgy, balding and very impatient. He hadn't tolerated nonsense and Clara, who didn't know that was her name at that point, had the feeling that he didn't like her very much, or, at the very least, he considered her a waste of his time and resources. He never said it out loud, of course, but, young as she had been then, she hadn't been stupid and adults were very easy to read.

In spite of this it still took her a few days to gather the courage to ask him about what had happened to her. What? She was scared!

Once she did, he told her that she had been on an accident on his property, which was why he was taking care of her for the time being. It had been a terrible accident, he said with sad eyes, and she had been seriously hurt. That was the reason she had absolutely no memory from before waking up, apparently the trauma had been too much for her mind to cope and she had forgotten. Maybe one day she would remember, he said in an attempt to be comforting, but the words rang hollow. He also told her that she didn't even belong into the 51st century and that getting the means to send her back to her own time was proving more difficult than predicted and it could be a while before she was home.

Her name, he said, was Clara and that was all he knew about her.

The newly dubbed Clara immediately knew that he'd been lying but she couldn't guess a reason for it, so she accepted the answers and quietly stifled the gnawing feeling inside her chest that urged her to do... something. She didn't know what she was supposed to do though.

It took Mr. Lux an entire month to procure a vortex manipulator for a short window of time and less than a week later she was settled in a very specific orphanage on Earth, 21st century. She should've been more upset about being dumped like garbage in a completely new place, but she wasn't. Earth felt familiar in a way that Mr. Lux mansion hadn't and even the orphanage was a welcome change.

Little Clara hadn't understood why, and quite honestly she still didn't, but in all the time she had spent in the 51st century Mr. Lux had never called her by her name, preferring instead to address her as "girl". For some reason he also couldn't stand her presence for long periods of times, almost as if it hurt him somehow. The man's attitude had made her stay with him very disconcerting for the toddler, never mind one with amnesia, exceedingly boring and crushingly lonely and by the end of the month she was very glad to finally be out of his care.

However, the day before they were to leave for the past, he went looking for her.

"Clara?"

Mr. Lux voice directed at her was enough to startle the toddler out of her precarious perch on the windowsill that overlooked the gorgeous gardens. Without pause Clara scrambled to her feet and turned towards her guardian with wide and surprised eyes. Mr. Lux stood stiffly on the doorway, as if unsure of his course of action. Finally, after the longest ten seconds of her life, Mr. Lux walked towards the armchair closer to the window. He sat down and signalled her to do the same on the armchair directly across his. After a few minutes of increasingly uncomfortable silence Clara decided to speak up.

"Is there a problem Mr. Lux?"

The man startled at hearing her voice and actually seemed relieved that someone had broken the silence.

"Everything's alright. I just have something to give you."

And with those words he passed her a simple jewellery box. She inspected curiously, turning it around several times as she had never seen anything like it; that she knew of at least. When the plain dark blue exterior proved boring she forced it opened. In the middle of its cushioned insides was a silver bracelet with a lone charm scribbled with weirdly familiar circles and dots that she couldn't decipher. Clara blinked in surprise and looked up to Mr. Lux who was looking as uncomfortable as one can look while keeping almost unnaturally still.

"It was your mother's," he explained at last, when it was obvious that the answer wasn't going to jump at her out of thin air.

Clara's brown eyes widened and she looked back at the piece of jewellery with new eyes. "My mother's?"

"Yes. It was more than a little damaged though, which is why it took me so long to return it," he was lying again but Clara was so entranced by what she thought a piece of her missing past that she didn't notice. "It's as similar to the original as we could manage but I had to have it modified so it would fit you through your life. May I?"

The little girl gave it to him and extended her right wrist. She kept her eyes on it all the time, even after it was secured to her.

"Clara," the girl looked up, "I have it on good authority that your... mother was very fond of it as it belonged to her mother before her. She never took it off, or so I was told."

"You knew my mother, didn't you?" The girl asked, eyes narrowed and far too intense for such an angelic face, the man actually flinched. Her next words weren't a question. "She was your friend."

Mr. Lux looked like he had been slapped. His surprised, however, worked in his favour as it managed to hide the lie in his words. "I... yes... yes, of course."

"Ok! Then I'll never take it off!" Clara promised with a wide smile and an all too familiar fire in her eyes.

"Good, that's... good." He stood up stiffly and a bit too fast, startling Clara once again. "You should go to sleep now. Tomorrow we'll leave."

"Oh, ok. Goodnight, Mr. Lux."

The man stopped on the doorway and turned half-way, barely enough to look at her.

"Sweet dreams, Clara."

It was the first time he had talked to her with anything resembling fondness in his voice. Clara smiled, oddly happy, and did as he said. It was also the first time that she slept through most of the night without nightmares.

Truth to his word the next day she set foot on 21st century Earth for the first time ever, as far as her memory was concerned anyway. He left her settled soon after and while Clara didn't really miss him, per se, after that last day she became fond of him. A little bit.

  
**~03~03~03~  
**

Clara woke up from that dream/memory with a startled gasp, a wrecking ball hammering without pause inside her head and a dull ache sitting heavily on her chest, three things she hadn't experienced in a while with that kind of intensity, not since meeting the Doctor. It had literally been years since she had dreamt about those first confusing weeks of her life, before she was adopted by the Oswalds, which happened three months after being dropped off in the past. That period of a month and a few days she'd spent in the future still refused to make sense, even after all these years. Whatever had happened to her in the "accident" had really messed her head up, and while she had doubts about how truthful Mr. Lux had been with her, she had no doubt that something terrible indeed happened, the gaping void in her head where memories should be spoke for itself.

Clara sat up and kicked the covers away from her, feeling claustrophobic all of sudden. That happened sometimes. She didn't know why, but confined spaces gave her the chills.  _That_  was the main reason for her reluctance to enter the TARDIS when she first met the Doctor, to her eyes the ship had been just a box, a tiny box. Even now, after months of travelling with the Doctor, she sometimes had to remind herself that the box wasn't a box, it was in reality a bigger on the inside space-and-time ship.

In an effort to keep her thoughts at bay Clara got up, grabbed a flashlight she always kept under her pillow, flicked it on and headed to the kitchen. She had a night lamp on her bedside table to keep the shadows at bay in her room but the hallways were too dark for her comfort and right now comfort was what she needed. That was another thing, twenty four years old and she still was terrified of the dark. It was one of those irrational, paralyzing fears that no one and nothing can explain, although Clara had the inkling that this one actually had a specific place of origin and that it was related, somehow, with the memories she was missing. The same with the fear of being lost, adrift in space and time, always alone and never to be found...

Clara slammed the kettle on the stove with more force than required, viciously cutting off those thoughts before they could grow any stronger and sent her into a panic. She had thought she was done with panicking about things like that, done with jumping at shadows and seeking a comforting hand that would make her feel less alone in the universe, loved even.

The kettle whistled, she poured the water in her favourite cup and started rummaging through the cupboards. She found an opened packet of Jammie Dodgers that were still edible so she grabbed them and once everything was ready she picked up the cup, snatched her flashlight and returned to her bedroom. But instead of heading towards the bed she sat at her desk. Her hands went to the chain around her neck; at the end of the long chain was a small key which opened the top drawer on her left. She unlocked it and retrieved a small, red leather bound journal from the mess inside.

Clara knew that she wouldn't get any more sleep tonight so what better way to pass the time than to finish recounting her latest adventure with the Doctor.

The visit to the abandoned Hedgewick's Wold and the confrontation with, not only Cybermen but a mind controlled Doctor, had shaken her more than she had let the Doctor see. The whole thing had been an unmitigated disaster that had almost cost her Angie and Artie's lives but... but it had been  _fun_ too, regardless of how appalled she was with herself for even  _thinking_  such a thing. Being in the middle of a war zone and taking control of the available troops while the Doctor did his thing somewhere else had felt as natural as breathing. And  _that_  scared her. Clara had always been assertive and sure of herself, at least once she found her footing, but there was a difference between that and taking charge of a situation the way she had done.

Still a bit lost in the memories, Clara went to the last page of her journal and added Cybermen to the ever-growing list of things that scared her for no good reason. There were quite a lot of things on that list, some were normal fears, but others were just plain bizarre, like her aversion towards angel statues of any kind, or shadows or the Silence. She still couldn't fathom why she had written Silence with capital S, or at all, but it felt right.

Then there was Porridge's marriage proposal, or well, the Emperor's marriage proposal and wasn't that completely mind-blowing. No more than the Doctor's reaction though.

"But you were going to  _marry_  him, Clara!" The Doctor exclaimed with uncharacteristic vehemence, limbs flailing around in his flustered state and something unidentifiable shining in his eyes. "And you  _shushed_  me!  _Me!_ "

"Of course I wasn't going to marry the Emperor," Clara denied without missing a beat before adding distractedly. "I'm already married."

"You are  _married_?!" The Doctor yelped in outrage, like a cat whose tail was trodden on.

This time it was Clara's turn to do a double-take. "What? No! Of course I'm not married. Where would I've gotten the time to get married?"

"But you just said you were married!"

"I didn't! And I'm not!"

"But you did!"

It was the absolute conviction in his voice that made her waver. The Doctor was rarely that serious, that side of him generally came out to play when the world or the universe or some variation thereof was in danger of being obliterated. Not when they were bantering about a  _marriage_  that would never be, of all things. A shiver wracked her body and fear crept up her spine because she didn't remember saying those words. No matter how many times she replayed the conversation in her head, they weren't there.

"Why would I say that?" She asked, sounding as confused as she felt which in turn worried the Doctor. But before he could start the Spanish Inquisition, Clara raised a hand, shook her head and shelved the faux pas as a onetime thing product of being too tired to string a coherent thought. "You know what? Never mind. It's probably all this excitement screwing up with my head. Just take us home, yes?"

It wasn't as if she wasn't worried or curious. Exactly the opposite was more likely. Clara had always been too curious for her own good, even as a child and that didn't go away once she grew up. Why else would she jump into adventure inside a blue box with a mad alien otherwise? Although it could be argued, by anyone not called the Doctor who obviously was too curious for everyone's peace of mind, that Clara's case was a bit over the top. She thought it was normal, especially when your own body was like a minefield ready to kill you at the simplest mistake. It hadn't been until much later that she realized how lucky she'd been to have Mr. Lux and his friend with her at the beginning, because they'd known what was ok for her to be near or to ingest and what things she should stay far away from.

Like pears, ugh!

Or hospitals and tests in general ******. Because the protections he'd put in place with the help of the lady (and he never explained what those  _were_ , although she had her suspicions) wouldn't keep her from being noticed if she was stupid, or unlucky, enough to land herself in the Emergency Room. Being noticed, he said, was a bad thing when you had an extra heart beating in your chest. Clara had been but a child back then, but she'd taken those words very seriously and memorized the laundry list of things she wasn't allowed to ingest and, while she wasn't entirely successful, she never ended up in an examination table.

Now the Doctor was looking at her with worry in his eyes and a plea in his lips but, despite trusting him with her life, she wasn't prepared to trust him with her secrets just yet. If anything, her own reluctance shed a world of light into the Doctor's motivation for being the way he was. She had only kept her secret for twenty one years, is it any wonder that the Doctor couldn't bring himself to spill the secret he had guarded jealously for longer than a millennium?

"Just take us home, Doctor."

She wasn't going to back down and, after seeing the bone tired faces of the children they'd saved, he conceded the round, materializing the TARDIS right in front of the Maitland's house. Clara couldn't help but think that he'd gotten better at steering the TARDIS, only to mentally slap the foreign thought right out of her head. She swallowed. This was getting out of hand and it scared her.

  
**~03~03~03~  
**

Morning found Clara tinkering with her laptop. She had long completed her journal entry and this was something she did as a hobby nowadays. It was a wonderful way of relieving stress or boredom in the long hours of the night, normally after a nightmare has shaken her awake. She smirked, who would've thought than being uploaded to the internet could be so useful? She saved the changes she'd made during the night and stretched her abused back.

Today was a Wednesday, which meant adventure, which meant a hearty breakfast in order to be able to run all day long when they inevitably end up in a hostile environment and an even more dangerous situation.

If only she had any idea of how true that thought would turn out to be, for the Doctor's greatest challenge was looming ever closer and she was going to be in the middle of it. Like she had/is/will always be.

Meeting people in a dream conference was surreal enough, what happened next on Trenzalore was way beyond the limit of what was impossible, but meeting River Song was on a completely different level, it was on a whole level of its own.

The second she'd laid eyes on the very familiar woman with the sharp eyes and the untameable hair alarms starting blaring inside Clara's head, loudly. Instincts she hadn't knew she possessed started screaming at her to leave, leave, leave, leave, leave, LEAVE, LEAVE...

A firm but kind hand landed on her forearm, immediately a spike of pain shot through the middle of her forehead viciously but the shock actually helped in stilling her frantic thoughts enough so that she could get a grip. When she opened her eyes (when had she closed them?) she saw that everyone was looking at her worriedly.

"S-sorry, I don't..." she drank a bit of tea to steady herself, "I don't know what came over me."

"It's okay," reassured the newcomer, straightening back on her seat. So she had been the one to touch her. "It happens sometimes."

"It's never happened to me before," retorted Clara a touch too sharply. The too intense pain had receded but her head hadn't stopped pounding and it soured her mood considerably. That was the only reason for the rude words that spilled from her lips, she told herself firmly. "And what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in the future?"

Because this woman with the space hair and the knowing smirk was the same woman who had instructed on the things she could and couldn't do. They had only talked through a computer before and she was never told the woman's name but Clara never forgot a face. *******

"I got bored and we've never met in person before," was the woman's reply, a suggestive smirk on her lips and genuine remorse on her eyes for causing her pain.

Huh. Okay, an accident then. Clara took the cup to her lips again and nodded to the blond woman to show that she understood. That didn't prevent Clara from being her usual sassy self and, despite the annoyance displayed clearly in River's eyes; the older woman seemed to delight in the light-hearted banter.

It didn't remain that way for long. The conference had been a trap, the Doctor's friends had been kidnapped, River had disappeared with none being the wiser and now she and the Doctor were about to sprung the aforementioned trap in the vain hope of saving everyone. And all the while her head kept trying to kill her. Leaving the conference and River behind seemed to help a little but it wasn't enough.

And then she had no time to worry about splitting headaches or mysterious women because they were running for their lives through catacombs and after that through the darkened hallways of the TARDIS, the giant one. It made Clara horribly uncomfortable to think that they were basically running inside the ship's corpse, uncomfortable and terribly sad, almost as if she had lost a friend, or a parent.

Nothing made sense anymore. As time passed and they advanced through hallways and staircases, as they ran from the Whisper Men things just kept going downhill. Memories she shouldn't remember resurfaced, things the Doctor had said, things that she had done, things that  _didn't make sense!_

Until they did.

Kneeling next to a dying Doctor, bathed in the red luminescence of the Time Lord's corrupted time stream, in that instant, she understood with crystal-clear clarity what her part on this play was, she understood what she had to do, what she had already done, what she would keep doing, over and over again.

Clara still didn't have her lost memories, because they were exactly that, lost. But if she concentrated hard enough, if she focused all those weird senses she sometimes unconsciously used, she could almost see that this was the right thing to do. The same way right now she could almost see the connection shared between her and River. Clara didn't understand the nature of that connection either, except that it was of the utmost importance and that it caused both of them pain. Well, she did understand one thing and that was this: River had died saving the Doctor and now Clara would die doing the same thing.

She stepped towards the Doctor's infested time steam, the once beautiful strands of pure white now tainted red by the hate of a being too narrow minded to understand that, while the Doctor could be and often was terrible, his life, all of them, were the only thing keeping the Universe together. Killing the Doctor would ensure the slow death of the Universe. Erasing the Doctor though... well, that didn't bear thinking.

Clara thought she heard him say something from his supine position on the metal floor, a plea maybe, but to whom? To his Impossible Girl who was going to do something monumentally stupid in order to save him, or to the Great Intelligence who was torturing him in every point of his timeline. It didn't matter either way. She took another step that seemed like a mile long but before she could take another Clara heard River Song's voice. The young woman turned to face the Doctor's (dead) wife and that connection between the two of them flared again with painful intensity and a terrible familiarity Clara couldn't place.

Clara looked defiant but if she thought that River would try to talk her out of this course of action, much like the Doctor was doing in spite of being practically writhing on the floor thanks to the intense agony he was in, she was to be disappointed. 

River didn't try to dissuade her older-but-younger self. How could she, when she'd done the same thing so long ago? Clara may not remember a single thing from before The Library but her (their) love for the Doctor remained there, driving her to be the best she could be and then some, to never show fear and to never run away when actually afraid. So no, River didn't try to stop Clara, she did warn her other self of the consequences but that was all. What River actually did was leave a message. She walked closer, mindful of not touching her future self again, and leaned to murmur a few words on Clara's ear.

Clara gave her a sharp look that spoke volumes of her thoughts on the matter but, as always, there was no time to waste so she pushed the cryptic message aside and turned to give the Doctor one last smile and deliver her own message.

"If this works, get out of here as fast as you can. And spare me a thought now and then."

"No, Clara."

She got closer to the Doctor's time stream, a strange sort of energy licking at the edges of her senses.

"In fact, you know what? Run. Run, you clever boy, and remember me."

"No, Clara!"

She leaped.

 

 _"I don't know where I am. I don't know where I'm going or where I've been. I was born to save the Doctor but the Doctor is safe now. I'm the Impossible Girl and my story is done,"_  Clara in  _The Name of the Doctor_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***** I don't know if the quote was perfect for this chapter or if I wrote this chapter because of that quote. Either way I love it
> 
>  ****** Tests, as in invasive tests, as in blood, DNA, urine analysis, etc. Not the kind of tests I mentioned the Doctor did in the last chapter: like sniffing at her, tasting a loose strand of her hair behind her back and using the sonic on her to prove that she wasn't a flesh avatar. Those wouldn't tell him anything too unusual.
> 
>  ******* Yes, River is the mysterious "lady friend" of Mr. Lux.
> 
> Now paradoxes, if you are thinking about paradoxes, well, my explanation is that River isn't and never was there, not physically. We know that indirectly interacting with a younger or older self is possible without blowing up the Universe; River just stretched the possibility to the extreme, as she is wont to do. It's still very reckless, dangerous and very much not advised, as demonstrated the pain it put both of them through.


	4. The TARDIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to make it clear that this rate of update just **doesn't happen** with me. Believe me; I'm as surprised as you are.
> 
>  **Warning:** Allusion to sex and nudity, but it's so vanilla that it almost doesn't deserve the warning. I'll tag it anyway.
> 
> This'll quite likely have just one more chapter. But I haven't even gotten started so I don't know.  
> .

_  
_**Disclaimer:**   _It's hilarious to think that anything but this plot belongs to me, *dies laughing*_

 **Words:**   _4597._

* * *

 

 

" _I've got this weird feeling it's looking at me. It doesn't like me,"_  Clara in _Hide._

 

  
**~04~04~04~  
**

The Tardis did not, in fact, hate Clara.

She was just exceedingly frustrated with the girl's entire existence, even more that her Thief. That was why, while the Doctor, as always, chose to throw himself heart and headfirst into the mystery, the Tardis held back, and ok, maybe she had been unnecessarily antagonistic all this time, but someone needed to show common sense and it was obvious that the Time Lord wouldn't, as usual. So she remained aloof, she watched and made notes to herself, and maybe she came off as unfriendly but it was for the best really. Or so she had thought.

She was regretting that now. Stranded in the only place they should've never stopped until the very End the Tardis could do nothing but regret her previous actions as new information scrolled down in her screen. Had the Tardis been able she would've cried in despair as her mistake became clearer by the second.

There were many things that frustrated the Doctor about the new girl, simple, seemingly inconsequential things the Tardis couldn't understand by virtue of not being alive in the same sense that Clara and even the Doctor were. Regardless, she thought that her Thief was being an idiot by missing the most important thing of all: the timelines. *****  Of all the things that were wrong with the girl, her timeline was the worst. It was a nightmare to look at, literally.

The problems were as it follows: firstly, there was no beginning to Clara's timeline and no, she was not joking. It just sort of was there. All timelines had a beginning, a place where they split off from another timeline or timelines, depending if it was a single parent or two or even a creator or a group of them, everyone had to begin somewhere. Clara's timeline didn't, or if it did, the Tardis couldn't see it. Not even Time Lord's timelines had been like that, after a regeneration a Time Lord's timeline looked like it had been cut and sewn back together in a slightly different pattern. It was noticeable but also obvious as to whom the Time Lord in question was and where it came from. In Clara's case it was like someone had taken a knife to it, chopped a large section off and threw it away. Seen from that perspective it seemed like Clara had sprung from nowhere, disassociated from any sort of past. Clara's case was the most frustrating thing the Tardis had ever seen, and very worrying.

After that unintelligible beginning the girl's timeline was mostly normal (there was a jump from the future to the past right at the start but that was all). It was near the end that the thing got ridiculous again. If a timeline was a rope what happened would look as if someone had unwound the rope to its basic treads and dispersed them all over time and space. Except that didn't convey the sheer devastation visited upon the original timeline; it was like... like someone had taken a wrecking ball to a delicate crystal figurine and smashed it until there was nothing left but its base molecules and then,  _then_ those were spread through time and space.

The Tardis had taken a look and promptly retreated in horror. As vast as she was, in spite of all the things she'd seen and experienced, it'd been a long, long time since she'd seen that kind of destruction. Not since the Time War where, admittedly, worse things had happened and been done to an almost infinite amount of timelines. It was a pretty close call though.

Nevertheless, now that they were in Trenzalore things were becoming clearer to the sentient ship, like someone had finally decided to lift a veil she hadn't realized was blocking her senses. She felt keenly the precise moment the Great Intelligence infested her Thief time stream, the sheer, undiluted agony he was feeling echoed through her and if she could she would've been screaming alongside her Thief. They were connected after all, and as he died so did she. But then it miraculously stopped. The Tardis allowed herself a few seconds to be stunned before she shook herself out of it and went back to keeping an eye on the timelines, only to rear back in realization at what Clara had done/was doing/will do.

She had never realized regret could be so bitter.

As more time passed, and once again pain assaulted her when her idiot of a Time Lord jumped into his own time stream ( _seriously?!_ ), the Tardis traced Clara's timeline all the way back to the beginning. It still looked like an open wound that had never been treated (properly or otherwise) but now she could see more clearly and what she saw froze her all the way back to her heart.

That was when her doors were unlocked and a covered figure with a hauntingly familiar presence entered. If she could the Tardis would've been gaping in shock, in this case her complete and utter stillness was a dead giveaway.

The figure closed the door gently and patted the not-wood with fondness. It stepped towards the console, where a dainty and defiantly feminine hand rested for a moment, before continuing towards the bowels of the ship, her destination firmly in mind. The Tardis let her. Five minutes later the figure returned and headed towards the doors. The Tardis rapidly changed pitch to hum in confusion and maybe a bit of desperation leaked out. The Ship didn't want her to go but she couldn't stay, the Doctor and his entourage were leaving the tomb at this precise moment, if she wanted to slip unnoticed this was the moment.

She lifted a finger to her lips, the universal sign for silence.

"Spoilers," was all she said, shadowed lips curved in a sardonic and amused smirk under the hood. A moment later she was gone.

   
 **~04~04~04~**

The Tardis' interior was barely lit with a soft but subdued glow when the Doctor and his friends strolled in, all of them, with the exception of Strax, looking worried for the young woman cradled in the Doctor's arm.

"Take us away from here, would you Old Girl?" Her Thief murmured tiredly. She could see that he was a hairsbreadth away from dropping in exhaustion but that he didn't dare, not when his Impossible Girl was unconscious on his arms, not when he didn't know if she was going to ever wake up and, even if she did, whether she was going to be alright or not.

No sooner had those words left his lips the Tardis was already dematerializing from the graveyard with uncharacteristic gentleness, which basically meant that, while they had to relocate their feet in order not to fall on their arses, they weren't thrown around like ragdolls.

"Thank you, dear."

The time rotor lit once in acquiescence, which was, she supposed, a rather subdued response to a heartfelt compliment. Naturally, her Thief noticed and his already present frown deepened, but he said nothing. He probably thought that she was still angry at him for dropping her on Trenzalore, and he would be right, but that wasn't the reason for her current mood.

Without as much as a word to his three friends the Doctor left the console room in the general direction of the infirmary, which she relocated so it was easily accessible. She never played games in situations as dire as this one, much less when the Doctor was looking like his world was crashing around his ears,  _again_ , her feelings on the matter notwithstanding. Not that right now she was feeling antagonistic, completely the opposite actually.

The infirmary was one of the things that hadn't changed recently. It was a vast and well lit room with a domed ceiling so high that the painted sky seemed as real as it got, that's to say,  _very_. There were several beds against the wall to the left, the wall across from the beds was composed entirely of drawers that you'd need stairs just to reach half of them and the wall across from the door had an examination table surrounded by a few recognizable machines (to earthlings in the 21st century) but most of them were so obviously alien or futuristic as to seem sci-fi. There were more equipment around but the Doctor bypassed everything and carefully laid Clara on the examination table.

True to his chosen name he wasted no time in hooking Clara to a wide variety of machines. But first of all he carefully connected a dozen of strategically placed electrodes on her head to monitor her brain activity, which was his greatest concern. If Clara's situation turned out to be anything like Donna's... the Doctor honestly didn't know what he would do. He waited with baited breath for the results to start appearing in the connected monitor and his legs almost gave up from under him when it showed that her brain was fine, working at a faster pace than what was normal for most humans but still inside what was considered healthy. Good, that was good.

After he got his galloping hearts under control the Doctor proceeded to connect the rest of the machines. Unfortunately, he never got that far, because as soon as he turned on the ECG machine the painfully familiar but utterly incongruous sound of four heartbeats reached his ears. He blanched at the sound, he couldn't help it. The last time he'd heard that four heartbeats it'd been the last time he had made love to River in Darillium, with his ear against her naked breasts and tears in his eyes.

The Doctor finally managed to wrench himself from his memories as the machine turned off on its own, which actually means by the Tardis. He sent the Old Girl a wave of gratitude telepathically. Free of his worst memories for now, the Doctor took Clara's pulse manually. Two heartbeats. He turned on the ECG. Four heartbeats. He turned it off and tried again. Two heartbeats, but if he concentrated exclusively on the information he was receiving via his fingers... they were too fast for just one healthy heart. This wasn't right; something was seriously messing with his perception... Perception. The final piece clicked into place at last. Oh.  _Of course_.

The Doctor took half a step back and inspected Clara's form. His eyes immediately zeroed on her mysterious bracelet. Ignoring the tiny voice of reason inside his head that told him Clara would be  _pissed_  at him for this, the Doctor unclasped the silver chain with its little, but frighteningly powerful, perception filter. The change was immediate even though it wasn't terribly obvious; it was like finally achieving peace after itching like mad from an invisible and untouchable limb. He grabbed her wrist again, and there it was! Four beats rhythmically thumping away inside her chest.

Now that the rest of his senses weren't being befuddled by the perception filter the Doctor could tell, just by touch, that her temperature was a few degrees below the norm for humans, yet she was healthy. He couldn't tell what else was different without an in-depth examination but, regardless of what he wished to do, he knew that Clara would never, absolutely  _ever_ , forgive him if he did that without her consent.

So, to stave off the urge to do exactly what he knew he couldn't do, the Doctor turned on the ECG again and let himself be lulled into a peaceful trance by the dual heartbeat of his Impossible Girl, who just kept getting more impossible as more time passed.

The Tardis dimmed the lights, locked the door of the infirmary and settled to watch over her Time Lord and her child as they slept off the exhaustion of the past day.  
  


**~04~04~04~  
**

Consciousness returned to Clara in the form of the vaguely familiar sound of four rhythmical beats that combined perfectly with the tireless orchestra playing at full force inside her skull. Where had she heard that sound before? Oh yeah, she remembered now, it was the sound of two hearts beating in unison. She had heard it a couple of times in this life, her original life, but mostly she associated it with that life long ago when she had directed a young/old Doctor to the correct TARDIS.

"Clara?"

Think about the Doctor and he shall appear.

Clara opened her eyes only to see the Doctor less than two inches from her face. It was a completely reasonable reflex to shout and try to sit down, she'd think later, which of course only succeeded in her forehead meeting his nose in an impressive collision that left both of them seeing stars and not in a nice way.

"Ow, ow, ow, what is your face made of Doctor?"

" _My_  face?! What about  _your_  head?" Said the Doctor, or at least that what she thought he said, it was difficult to decipher his words when he was clutching his face like that. At least they already were in the infirmary.

Oh, Clara's brain finally coined into that fact. They were in the infirmary and she was hooked to the alien equivalent of an ECG. Without thought or pause she ripped the electrodes from her body as if they were poisonous snakes, causing the machine flatline and the Doctor to jump in sudden surprise and paralyzing horror. Then she saw her, electrodes dangling from her hand, and deflated in relief. He switched off the machine. The silence that followed was probably the most awkward silence she had felt in... well, ever. Except maybe for that one time in the 43rd century with the Doctor's fifth incarnation, it included a very popular pub, unhealthy quantities of alcohol and both his female companions. At the same time. Ah, good times.

"Clara..." he started nervously only to stop and fidget.

He was dying to know but how do you ask the persona you've travelled for months if they were an alien in disguise? And if so, which kind of alien and why the lie? Clara surely didn't think that he would discriminate against aliens? Most of the people the Doctor had befriended in his lives were aliens (and this included humans, of course), and now that he didn't have a planet anymore, absolutely everyone was alien from his point of view. Yes, the Doctor was being a bit obtuse about things, there weren't  _that_  many species with two hearts, but he was weary of letting himself hope only to have those hopes smashed...

"Mmm?"

"Did you know that you've two hearts?"  _What?!_  Honesty was the best policy, wasn't it?

Time sort of stopped as the question was asked. Not objective time, of course, but subjective time, then, oh yes, time absolutely froze and so did Clara. He knew. Silly Clara, of course he knew, the Doctor had been itching to put her under a microscope since before they had met properly and she had woken up hooked to an ECG boldly displaying her alien heartbeat.

"Yeah," she admitted because, seriously, what else could she do?

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why didn't you tell me your name?" She shot back, annoyed. Did he really have to sound so betrayed? He didn't have the right to sound betrayed, she thought maybe a bit unkindly, not when he had more secrets inside his head than years under his belt.

"Because you never asked?" He ventured.

But both knew that wasn't the reason (or even a reason really) and that asking would've gotten nobody anywhere. They didn't share their secrets simply because they were too used to keep them close to the vest, because it was easier that way and because they were terrified of what letting go could mean. What did it mean now for her? She didn't know and she didn't ask. Instead she just agreed with him.

"Exactly."

Contrary to her earlier belief, the silence that followed was easily the worst yet. After a minute of this Clara decided that they weren't going to get anywhere today or tonight or whenever. She finished picking off the electrodes she'd missed earlier and carefully slid off the examination table as her head hadn't stopped pounding. She had almost reached the door when the Doctor pull himself out of his mind and realized she wasn't where he'd left her.

( _"Don't wander off."_   _"She goes wandering off."_   _"I can't let you go wandering off."_   _"...and don't wander off"_ )

"Where're you going?" He asked in alarm, making her wince at the volume and the ridiculously high pitch of his voice. On the upside, his voice cut through the cacophony of unwelcome memories like a hot knife through butter.

Despite the piercing headache she still managed to look at him like he was mad. "I'm going to find someplace to sleep. I'm knackered."

"But...! But I haven't finished examining you yet! What if there is something I've missed? Better to stay here for a while."

"Doctor, I'm not going to sleep in the infirmary with you watching over me like a creep." The Doctor spluttered and blushed at this. The completely Doctor-ish reaction managed to return some semblance of normalcy to the whole situation that only seemed to get more and more uncomfortable as time passed. Still, she knew he needed a bit of reassurance or this would take forever and she needed time to herself  _right_  NOW. "It's been a long day, Doctor. I'm exhausted and even you look ready to drop. We'll talk later, ok?"

When put like that, he could only nod and watch her exit the infirmary. It only occurred to him a moment too late that Clara didn't have a room in the Tardis and that, no matter how nice and helpful she had been up to this moment, the Old Girl really didn't like Clara for some reason. But when he exited the infirmary Clara was nowhere to be seen. He groaned and let his forehead fall into the metal wall of the hallway. Bad idea.  _Ouch!_

"Be nice, please."

He wasn't sure what to make of the amusement that got mixed with a general feeling of entirely too easy acceptance, but he decided to take what he could get and hope that the Tardis wasn't taking her frustration with him on Clara.  
  


**~04~04~04~  
**

Clara wandered the infinite hallways of the Tardis for less than a minute before a golden door materialized to her right. The brunette paused for a second, wondering if there really was a room behind that door, or if stepping through it would drop her in the middle of the engine room. She decided that she was much too tired to care so she pushed the door open.

Much to Clara's relief there was a bedroom on the other side. The walls were painted a deep, soothing blue and the floor was covered in a thick, cream-coloured carpet. Most of the room was dominated by a huge but comfortable looking bed. There was a dark brown desk against a wall and next to it, covering the rest of the wall, was a bookshelf full of all manner of books, magazines and what looked to Clara like priceless historical pieces. The other wall was bare except for two doors, one that lead to a bathroom and the other to a little piece of the wardrobe.

Clara decided to poke around for a bit; she'd been invited in a way so she was allowed to look. It soon became clear why the Tardis had let her into this room. On the piece of bare wall over the desk there were countless pictures held in place with a riot of colourful pins. Most of them were of the Doctor and River Song posing in different places, always with huge smiles on their faces and sparkling eyes. Many of them, but to a lesser extent, were of a couple she recognized from one of the many lives knocking around her head: Amy and Rory Williams, with or without the Doctor and River. They too looked exceedingly happy. And then there were photos just of River at different stages of her adult life, at University, at excavations, with colleagues, the works. It was an entire life pinned to a wall.

The life that, for some reason or another, Clara couldn't remember anymore.

What she  _could_  remember were thousands ( _millions? hundreds? did it matter?_ ) of lives revolving around the Doctor and, naturally, around the people closer to his hearts. This included River Song. Even better, she remembered being a soldier during the fight in Demon's Run. She'd moved in the shadows during the whole thing, helping the Doctor during the battle and ultimately dying without him ever realizing she'd been there. But she'd held onto her life until everything was revealed by a smug River Song, because it was important, something told her.

She remembered Melody Pond's file.

She wasn't sure if the outrageous theory she'd formed was correct but the facts had started to pill up long before she gained factual knowledge of Time Lords and regeneration, as well as how fallible the process was, courtesy of one of her echoes having been one.

That plus a few more memories were all she needed to reach the most likely conclusion. Melody Pond had Tardis and Time Lord genetic material grafted in her DNA, Melody was River and River had died saving the Doctor in the Library. Except that wasn't one hundred percent true, she'd regenerated one last time, but something had gone wrong and the memories were lost, leaving only... her, little empty Clara, with two hearts and no recollection of who she'd been.

"You really are a cow, aren't you?" She asked rhetorically to the ship, the tears in her voice making the words difficult to get out but got them out she did.

The lights on the room dimmed a bit and a sound that she could tell was meant as an apology reached her ears. It only made her cry harder. The Tardis hadn't been nice to her for one moment since... ever in this life, and now she was trying to play nice? Obviously the change hadn't happened because the ship had become fond of her; on the contrary, it was because she actually wasn't Clara Oswald but... but what? Who was she? What was she? Was she Clara Oswald or River Song? Did it matter? Better yet, did she have a choice in the matter?

Clara lowered herself on the chair and buried her face in her hands. Everything had been so much simpler when the only option was to jump towards a certain death so the Doctor could live. Nobody had ever told her about sorting through an identity crisis brought about by the realization that she was a lot older than she looked and had lived a whole life that she knew next to nothing about. She'd been so sure of herself just a few hours ago, what was she supposed to do now?

Then she remembered the words that River's ghost had whispered in her ear:

_"I know you haven't had the time to piece together who I am and who you are, but I also know you will and then you'll want answers. I can't tell you more, except to come to The Library if you survive, which, considering the self-sacrificing dunce we are doing this for it's an actual possibility. You'll find your answers there."_

The Library was one of the few places she had almost no memories of except for her own as a toddler, which were little more than a few blurry impressions and a general sense of panic coming from all around.

"How on earth am I going to go there without the Doctor noticing, panicking or flat-out refusing?"

The top drawer of the right opened on its own account. Clara's eyebrow shot up in surprise.

"Well, aren't you being all helpful all of sudden? Should I be worried?" No answer was forthcoming so she snorted, still miffed at the ship.

She reached into the drawer and only found a device she actually recognized as a vortex manipulator. Next to it was an envelope and on top of everything a folded piece of paper. She unfolded the note first and had to take a deep breath after seeing it covered by a very familiar penmanship.

She cleared her throat and read it out loud. Probably not the wisest choice when you're inside a sentient ship but well.

_Dear Clara:_

_Can't say much through here: very dangerous, terrible consequences, all that. Inside the envelope you'll find coordinates to reach The Library and instructions on how to do that and what to do once you are there. I don't like to insist like this, but you really **have**  to come and listen. Then there'll be a choice to make, one that only  **you**  can make. Also, this is about your own life so don't tell the Doctor. The Tardis will cover for you and stop him for as long as she can. Don't waste time._

_S. G._

_P.S, I realize you've no reason to do as I ask so I'll just say: Your dream to travel the world is second to another one you swore on your mother's grave. Think well on who you'd give this information to._

The note slipped from lax fingers as shock coursed through Clara's system. She had never told anyone about what her true dream was, not even her father whom she loved more than anyone. So either this S. G. had somehow pried the information from her or it was someone she trusted unconditionally. She only trusted one person like that.

Clara swallowed her doubts, and she had many of those, and opened the envelope. Everything the note said was there, various coordinates and instructions. She read those carefully. They made very little sense to Clara but it seemed like it was done on purpose so it stood to reason that there was a motive behind the annoying vagueness. Clara took another deep breath to calm her nerves. In the end she knew that her decision had been made as soon as she'd read the post script.

"Well, did you hear? Can you do as it says?"

The Tardis made a strange sound that she could tell was made to convey the ship's agreement.

"Fantastic," her eyes scanned the papers in her hands again. She sighed. "Well, I've always wanted answers, haven't I? Oh, why the hell not?!"

Mind completely made up Clara picked up the vortex manipulator and strapped it to her bare wrist, which reminded her that the Doctor had her bracelet. Slowly and carefully Clara punched in the first set of coordinates as instructed and, just in case, she double-checked and triple-checked that everything was in order. It was. She put the instructions back into the envelope and the envelope in her back pocket.

"I can't believe I'm going through with this." For a moment Clara considered looking for the Doctor, but then she looked around the room that in a sense was hers and realized that she didn't want him there this time. As the note said, this was about her, not him. She steeled herself. "Ok! Breathe Clara. Now, how did the Doctor put it? Ah, yes, Yowzah!"

She punched the button and disappeared from the Tardis with a crackle of displaced energy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***** I don't think the Doctor completely missed the problem like the Old Girl seems to think. I think that he just can't navigate the timelines with the same ease and depth that the Tardis can. I believe he can do it to a certain extent which is why he always seems to all-knowing but not like the Tardis describes, not on his own and certainly not without any sort of equipment (because if I'm not mistaken Time Lords could follow a timeline from beginning to current time, I think. But there are no Time Lords left and no equipment save for an old Tardis).


End file.
